Category: Theology

I saved this when it came out last week and just got around to reading it. I highly recommend you take a look!

In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago—the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife—and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.

What is the biggest purpose of God, the Father’s business in the world about which we must be about?

It’s the glory of God. God’s glory is the ultimate purpose or end of all creation—and it should be our ultimate end in every act (cf. a book recommended by my pastor which makes this point relentlessly). There are many means God gives us to that end:

Filling the earth, subduing it, and having dominion are among the first means He gave us (Gen 1:28).

Becoming more like Christ by knowing God’s Word more deeply is another (Eph 4:11-15).

Evangelism is another (Mt 28:19-20; Acts 1:8).

It pains a good Protestant to say it sometimes, but it’s in the Bible: good works is another means of glorifying God (Eph 2:10; and cf. many references in the Pastoral Epistles).

What if we choose one of these means to God’s glory and make it the ultimate end? What if evangelism, for example, becomes the main thing? I’ve heard many say that the only reason God leaves Christians on earth is evangelism.

It cannot be damaging the cause of evangelism—which I have been very actively involved in for many years—to give that view a scriptural correction.

And like all erroneous views, even if they’re only slightly off true north, making evangelism the main reason we’re on earth leads to dangerous results:

Sound doctrine is comparatively devalued, because doctrinal disagreements distract the church from its evangelistic task. (I’m not denying that distraction is a problem, only that making evangelism the main thing is the solution.)

Urgency in evangelism turns into manipulation.

The other purposes of God in creating man (see above) are comparatively devalued. Take the dominion commanded in Genesis 1 and never rescinded: Why bother getting a liberal arts education, becoming a doctor, acquiring a taste for good choral music, or sweeping streets except insofar as those things give you opportunities to witness? And, really, how many witnessing opportunities are you likely to get via cultivating a taste for opera? Can that be the sole reason for acquiring that taste?

Christian people working “secular” jobs will be at best confused, at worst left feeling like second-class citizens.

Pastors will feel that it is their duty to preach to the lost instead of the saved, leaving the latter without nourishing spiritual food.

So let’s adopt the motto quoted by an evangelist I appreciate and borrowed from a most perceptive pastor-theologian, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “The first object of preaching the Gospel is not to save souls; it is to glorify God.”

“As soon as you start dealing with the public Internet, the whole notion of trust becomes a quagmire,” said Stefan Savage, an expert on computer security at the University of California, San Diego.

A more secure network is one that would almost certainly offer less anonymity and privacy. That is likely to be the great tradeoff for the designers of the next Internet. One idea, for example, would be to require the equivalent of drivers’ licenses to permit someone to connect to a public computer network. But that runs against the deeply held libertarian ethos of the Internet.

Proving identity is likely to remain remarkably difficult in a world where it is trivial to take over someone’s computer from half a world away and operate it as your own. As long as that remains true, building a completely trustable system will remain virtually impossible.

Sometimes non-Christians stumble close to a Christian worldview because it simply makes the best sense of the world. A better way to write that last line: “As long as humans remain fallen, building a completely trustable system will remain impossible.”

The major crux interpretum I’m aware of in this passage regards the enumeration of what Protestants (except Lutherans) call the first two commandments. If “you shall have no other gods before me” and “you shall not make for yourself a graven image” are one commandment, then it is acceptable to make images of God—just not of false gods.

Interestingly, many Protestants who view these as separate commandments still explain them as meaning the same thing: “don’t have any other gods.” But if they are two commandments, then they must mean “don’t have any other gods” and “don’t worship the true God using images.”

Click on the image below for a helpful chart displaying the basic enumerations of the “10 words” from Logos’ new Bible Study Magazine.

Note: I would object only to naming the first column in the chart “Hebrew Bible,” as if that interpretation is encoded somehow into the Hebrew text. I believe it should instead read, “Jewish tradition.” I checked BHS, and I think I’m right!

Before I got married I used to spend a bit more time listening to MP3s… There’s been a marked drop-off in my listening time. Why would I want to listen to anything other than the sweet voice of my beautiful wife?

But if she and I ever do take time to listen to MP3s on car trips or while getting ready in the morning, I keep a stock at hand.

One podcast of an NPR radio show has become a favorite of ours: Radio Lab. Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich take an entertaining, thoughtful, and knowledgeable look at various scientific issues. (Note: A few shows truly are appropriate for adults but not for kids.)

Jad and Robert

Robert, the elder of the two hosts, regularly but somewhat incompletely takes the more conservative, theistic side in a debate.

And Jad, I think, takes a real interest in sound design. The way they structure their interviews aurally is unique, beautiful, and engaging.

Listen with care because all scientific “facts”—including those I accept!—come with theories already attached.

But listen, because all truth is God’s truth and declares His glory, showing His handiwork.